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Air Force Barred From Booting Unvaccinated + More
U.S. Judge Blocks Air Force From Kicking out, Punishing Thousands of Unvaccinated Troops
American Military News reported:
On Thursday, a federal judge in Ohio put a temporary stop to the U.S. Air Force kicking out thousands of service members who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19.
Judge Matthew W. McFarland, of Ohio’s Southern District, granted a temporary restraining order in the case of Hunter Doster, et al. v. Hon Frank Kendall, et al., in which Doster and other service members sued the Air Force Secretary to grant religious exemptions to the service’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
McFarland also granted a temporary restraining order, thus preventing the Air Force from enforcing its vaccine mandate, which can entail punishments and involuntary separations from the service, against the lawsuit class.
As of the Air Force’s latest vaccination statistics posted Tuesday, 6,803 members were denied religious accommodation requests, while 2,847 requests remain pending, and only 104 were approved. Approximately 2.9% of the Air Force’s entire ranks remain unvaccinated. The service has already kicked out 834 members.
California Social Media Addiction Bill Drops Parent Lawsuits
A first-of-its-kind proposal in the California Legislature aimed at holding social media companies responsible for harming children who have become addicted to their products would no longer let parents sue popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
The revised proposal would still make social media companies liable for damages of up to $250,000 per violation for using features they know can cause children to become addicted. But it would only let prosecutors, not parents, file the lawsuits against social media companies. The legislation was amended last month, CalMatters reported Thursday.
The bill’s author, Republican Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham, said he made the change to make sure the bill had enough votes to pass in the state Senate, where he said a number of lawmakers were “nervous about creating new types of lawsuits.”
The bill would exempt social media companies from these lawsuits if they conduct quarterly audits of their features and remove any harmful products within 30 days of learning they cause children to become addicted.
Colorado Ends Vaccination Mandate for Healthcare Workers, Federal Requirement Still Applies to Most
The Colorado Board of Health allowed the state’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for healthcare workers to expire Thursday, but many facilities will still mandate vaccines under a federal order.
Representatives from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) asked the health board not to extend the requirement at a June meeting, citing a plateau in data that suggests workers who were going to get vaccinated had done so already.
The state said about a third of healthcare facilities will still require employees to get vaccinated under a federal rule that applies to workplaces that accept Medicare and Medicaid insurance.
Local Firefighters Terminated Over Vaccine Mandate Pursue $171 Million Tort Claim
The decision not to get vaccinated for COVID-19 earlier this year cost them their jobs and now 10 former employees with Eastside Fire and Rescue are demanding tens of millions of dollars in damages.
The firefighters said they suffered discrimination from district leadership and have filed a tort claim seeking $171 million in damages.
The firefighters behind the legal claim lost their jobs for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine, something Gov. Jay Inslee mandated for all healthcare workers once the vaccines were being rolled out.
Exemptions to the mandate were granted but Eastside’s top officials declined to accommodate the employees to allow them to return to fire engines or aid cars where they would have to interact with patients.
Virginia Changes COVID Quarantine, Mask Recommendations for Schools
Virginia is no longer recommending quarantine for asymptomatic children, teachers and staff exposed to COVID-19 in schools, child care and day camp settings.
The Virginia Department of Health’s revised quarantine rules for early childhood education settings were announced Friday by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“As Virginians continue to return to the office and social settings, the pandemic is disrupting workplaces and family life when entire childcare facilities, camps and classrooms shutter in response to as few as two cases,” Gov. Youngkin said in a statement.
The new guidance from VDH said “quarantine is no longer routinely recommended” and that those exposed to the virus can still attend school or other early childhood education settings as long as they don’t have symptoms.
Colleges, Students Respond to End of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID Vaccine Mandate
When the new school year starts this fall, whether Illinois college students and faculty will be surrounded by vaccinated classmates and colleagues will largely depend on where they are enrolled.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday announced an end to a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for college students and faculty, essentially leaving the policy up to individual schools. On Thursday, some local colleges and universities were still grappling with the decision, while others came down on opposite sides.
China’s Economic Growth Slumps Sharply After COVID Lockdowns
China’s economic growth has slowed sharply in the second quarter of the year, official data showed on Friday, highlighting the colossal toll from widespread COVID lockdowns and casting doubt over whether its pre-ordained growth target can be met.
Output contracted by 2.6% between April and June compared with the previous quarter, the statistics bureau said, prompting many economists to revise their predictions for the world’s second-biggest economy.
On an annual basis, the economy grew 0.4% in the second quarter, the worst since the pandemic-hit first months of 2020, but even that was worse than the consensus forecast by economists of 1%.
Congress Should Make Privacy Measures a Top Priority, Poll Shows
Most American parents want Congress to pass online privacy legislation, especially to protect children, according to a poll by digital advocacy group Trusted Future.
In a survey of 992 respondents with at least one child under the age of 17, about 63% said that if they could choose one priority for Congress, it would be to increase privacy protections.
The U.S. lacks a federal statute on privacy. While 25 states have introduced privacy legislation, only a handful have signed them into law and even fewer have implemented robust standards that prevent tech companies from collecting user data without consent.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, passed in 1998, protects children 13 and younger. Companies including Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok have all paid fines for violations of the law.
Judge Orders Discovery to Proceed in Social Media Collusion Lawsuit Against Biden Administration
A federal judge has ordered several social media companies to turn over documents and answer questions within the next 30 days as part of the discovery phase in a lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, which allege that the Biden administration colluded with tech giants to censor conservatives.
“In May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress freedom of speech on a number of topics including the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks and election integrity,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a Tuesday statement.
“Today, the Court granted our motion for discovery, paving the way for my Office to gather important documents to get to the bottom of that alleged collusion — this is a huge development.”
Hohmann: In a Technocracy, You Will Have No Rights, Only Privileges
When Klaus Schwab or some other globalist tells you that you will own nothing, they don’t necessarily mean that you will literally not own a thing and just rent everything from the billionaires.
If that happened, Amazon and Walmart would go out of business. And we all know that cannot be allowed to happen.
So while you may technically still own a house, a car, computers, appliances, a cellphone, etc., in the emerging digital economy, do you really own it? By that I mean, do you have full control over the usage of those products?
If you have a deed or a receipt that says “paid in full,” are there any more service fees required for the “privilege” of using that product? Even if there are no fees required, does any outside entity have the ability to monitor or shut down whatever device you own? How much of your personal user data is being sent back to the manufacturer, which then uses it to sell you other products, or sells your data to the government and other corporations?
The Corporate Layoffs Have Started and Leftist Big Tech Is Leading the Pack
There are two major forces at work within the U..S economy today that pull in different directions but end up in the same place: These forces are price inflation caused by central bank stimulus along with supply chain instability and recession triggered by rising interest rates. Immense corporate and consumer debt also play a role, but this ties in directly with the interest rate issue.
In other words, we are looking at a classic stagflationary scenario amplified by years of fiat dollar printing by the Federal Reserve. The only element that has been missing is rising unemployment, until now.
At least 143 U.S. tech companies have laid off around 24,000 employees this year and this is just the beginning.
New York Judge Ruled COVID Quarantine Rules Unconstitutional and Illegal + More
New York COVID Quarantine Rules Unconstitutional and Illegal: Judge
A New York Supreme Court judge this month quietly ruled that regulations mandating that people infected with or exposed to highly contagious communicable diseases be quarantined are a violation of state law, declaring them null and void. The Isolation and Quarantine procedures, known as Rule 2.13, were enacted in February.
Three Republican state legislators, Sen. George Borrello, assemblyman Chris Tague and assemblyman Michael Lawler, along with Uniting NYS, filed a lawsuit against Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, Commissioner of Health Mary Bassett, the state’s health department and the Public Health and Health Planning Council.
Plaintiffs argued that the Isolation and Quarantine procedures were in violation of the New York State Constitution and a violation of the separation of powers. In a July 8 ruling, Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of Cattaraugus County Ronald D. Ploetz sided with the plaintiffs, stating that the rule merely gives “lip service” to constitutional due process.
On Tuesday, Hochul told local media that she would be appealing the court’s decision, stating, “We feel very confident that if we appeal this, we will be successful.” New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office on Wednesday formally appealed the state Supreme Court ruling, according to local reports.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker Ends COVID Vaccine Mandates at Colleges as He Tweaks Many Statewide Pandemic Restrictions
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is ending Illinois’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for college students and faculty and easing some testing requirements for unvaccinated healthcare workers, changes that come despite growing concerns about new coronavirus variants that appear more able to evade immunity.
The same vaccination and testing requirements that have been in place since last year for elementary and secondary schools, as well as daycare centers, will remain in effect.
But under Pritzker’s new rules, workers in hospitals and other healthcare facilities — aside from long-term care facilities — who aren’t fully vaccinated will have to continue to submit to weekly testing but only if they are in a high coronavirus transmission county as determined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Philly Has Started Placing Unvaccinated City Workers on Leave. Here’s How the Numbers Break Down.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
Philadelphia city officials placed about 270 workers on leave this month for failing to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and more than 1 in 6 of the city’s public-safety employees requested to be exempt.
More than 5% of the unionized employees in the Prisons Department were placed on leave, and nearly 4% of the Fire Department’s unionized force — which includes firefighters, paramedics and EMTs — are on leave as well, the data show.
The 30-day “U-Vax leave” began on July 6. Workers may use accumulated paid time off, and then will be unpaid if that is exhausted. Employees may be fired if they remain out of compliance after the leave period.
About 22% of the Fire Department and more than 15% of the Police Department requested exemptions, the highest proportion among the city’s largest departments. It’s significantly higher than, for example, the 8% of workers in the Streets Department who requested exemptions or the 3% in Parks and Recreation.
Australian Football League Lifts COVID Vaccine Mandate for Players and Club Staff
The Australian Football League (AFL) has removed its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, paving the way for exiled players to return to the top level. Players, coaches and club staff will no longer need two doses of an approved vaccine in order to train and play.
The move brings the league into line with government requirements that legislate only specific industries need employees to be fully vaccinated.
The league released a statement saying: “Those players who were not fully vaccinated and ineligible to play and departed their clubs, as a result, may now seek to re-enter the AFL or AFLW system.”
Mexico Says It Will Spend $1.5 Billion to Invest In Controversial ‘Smart’ Border Surveillance Tech
Following a wide-ranging meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden this week, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador agreed to spend some $1.5 billion over the next two years investing in so-called “smart” border technology.
Though neither president provided concrete details on where the new funds would be allocated, previous smart border and smart wall pushes generally refer to a patchwork of facial recognition, drones, sensors, license plate readers, dog-like robots, DNA collection, and other emerging surveillance technologies that all strive to keep constant tabs on anyone entering or leaving the U.S.-Mexico border.
Though these so-called smart solutions seemingly offer an attractive alternative to sprawling physical barriers — particularly among Democratic lawmakers — they’ve simultaneously drawn intense scrutiny from academics and civil liberties groups who warn the technologies are ripe for abuse.
Censorship Will Kill Free Speech and Bury the Lessons of History
Patrick Provost, a tenured, published and respected Professor of Immunology at Université Laval who specializes in micro RNA, was suspended without pay for eight weeks for comments he made at a conference last December where he questioned the need for vaccinating children. The FDA, CDC and Health Canada themselves had at various times questioned the same issue.
Provost said, “I was just doing what I was hired to do. I searched the literature and gave a speech. Being censored for doing what I’ve been trained to do and hired to do is hard to believe.” But now we are all apparently supposed to be in lockstep groupthink. Thankfully his union has asked for his reinstatement with back pay.
There is a dangerous current running through society that for the sake of not offending anyone’s sensibilities, it is acceptable to engage in censorship. Public sanctioning of individuals daring to use certain words and express unpopular opinions.
This is wrong and dangerous. It kills free speech and buries the lessons of history. The only objective standard for limiting freedom of expression is overt incitement to violence. Every other standard is totally subjective and depending on who wields power, censorship can and has been used against the just and the innocent.
Technocracy: A Digital Slave System Where No Dissent Is Allowed
Through the Internet, people have been able to share information with each other in a way that was not possible before. According to the UN, this has not been entirely a good thing. People risk sharing “incorrect” information. It is therefore considered central to address what they term “infodemics” (the spreading of “dangerous” global rumors) and “false information.” Large-scale misinformation and undermining of “scientifically established facts” are seen as extremely serious problems.
The World Economic Forum (a UN Agenda 2030 partner since 2019) described the problem of “infodemics” in relation to pandemics as early as in its first Global Risks Report from 2006. The same report also called for top-down monitoring of global risks using satellites.
The problem was also raised in WEF’s latest Global Risks Report from 2022. This paints a serious threat to science, which means: Censure, denial and/or skepticism towards scientific evidence and the scientific community on a global scale, resulting in regression or stalling of progress on climate action, human health and/or technological innovation.
The fact that this procedure and ideas of “scientific consensus” are directly incompatible with the scientific method does not concern these actors because they still know what is best for us. Instead, there is a call for a form of “Ministry of Truth” that can evaluate and classify the information. This work will also be performed by their own well-drilled change agents.
A Legal Shield for Social Media Is Showing Cracks
An 11-year-old dies by suicide after she is sexually exploited on Instagram and Snapchat. Two teenagers are killed in a crash following a race using a Snapchat speed filter. A sexual predator uses Facebook to lure a 15-year-old girl into trafficking.
Social media companies for decades have been shielded from legal consequences for what happens on their platforms. But a sharp shift in public opinion and a bend in recent court rulings have the industry nervous that this could change — especially when damage is done to children online.
Lawsuits blaming social media platforms for teen suicides, eating disorders and mental collapses have picked up in the months since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told Congress that her company knew its products were addictive to kids and that their mental stability was suffering as a result.
And a bill moving through the California statehouse would make companies liable for addicting children, drawing comparisons to a strategy used against the tobacco industry.
Kids and Teens Now Spend More Time Watching TikTok Than YouTube, New Data Shows
Kids and teens are now spending more time watching videos on TikTok than on YouTube.
In fact, that’s been the case since June 2020 — the month when TikTok began to outrank YouTube in terms of the average minutes per day people ages 4 through 18 spent accessing these two competitive video platforms. That month, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, as this younger demographic began averaging 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube.
In the years since TikTok has continued to dominate with younger users. By the end of 2021, kids and teens were watching an average of 91 minutes of TikTok per day compared with just 56 minutes per day spent watching YouTube, on a global basis.
A New Attack Can Unmask Anonymous Users on Any Major Browser
Everyone from advertisers and marketers to government-backed hackers and spyware makers wants to identify and track users across the web. And while a staggering amount of infrastructure is already in place to do exactly that, the appetite for data and new tools to collect it has proved insatiable.
With that reality in mind, researchers from the New Jersey Institute of Technology are warning this week about a novel technique that attackers could use to de-anonymize website visitors and potentially connect the dots on many components of targets’ digital lives.
The findings, which NJIT researchers will present at the Usenix Security Symposium in Boston next month, show how an attacker who tricks someone into loading a malicious website can determine whether that visitor controls a particular public identifier, like an email address or social media account, thus linking the visitor to a piece of potentially personal data.
Unvaccinated J.T. Realmuto on Missing Toronto Games: ‘Not Going to Let Canada Tell Me What I Do’ With Body + More
Unvaccinated J.T. Realmuto on Missing Toronto Games: ‘Not Going to Let Canada Tell Me What I Do’ With Body
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto refuses to be swayed to get vaccinated against COVID-19 amid news he’ll miss Philadelphia’s two-game series in Toronto this week.
“I’m a healthy 31-year-old professional athlete,” Realmuto said Monday after the Phillies’ 6-1 loss to the Cardinals, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I’m not going to let Canada tell me what I do and don’t put in my body.”
Players who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will be unable to enter Canada to play games against the Blue Jays due to the country’s restrictions. Additionally, players will not be paid for those games, as part of the MLB’s new collective bargaining agreement. Realmuto will reportedly lose about $262,000 for missing the series, which he called “a little bit of money.”
Third baseman Alec Bohm reportedly said it was a “personal choice” as his reason for not getting a vaccination while starting pitcher Kyle Gibson cited a medical condition. Starting pitcher Aaron Nola said he “didn’t want to do it.”
Return of Mask Mandate Appears Imminent in LA County. Here’s What to Expect.
Los Angeles County is on track to enter the “high” COVID-19 community level as soon as Thursday, in which case an indoor mask mandate would return two weeks later, the public health director said Tuesday.
If the county continues at its current pace, masks could be mandated indoors again by July 29.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors she expects the county to move into the “high” activity category within days.
A mandatory indoor mask mandate will be imposed if the county remains in the “high” category for two consecutive weeks — which, under the current pace, means the mandate will take effect by July 29.
Meta Has a New AI Tool to Fight Misinformation — and It’s Using Wikipedia to Train Itself
Facebook says it wants to help fix misinformation running rampant across the internet — a problem it may have helped create in the first place.
Facebook parent Meta announced a new AI-powered tool on Monday, called Sphere. It’s intended to help detect and address misinformation, or “fake news,” on the internet.
Meta claims that it’s “the first [AI] model capable of automatically scanning hundreds of thousands of citations at once to check whether they truly support the corresponding claims.”
Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Force Him to Go Through With $44B Deal
Twitter has made good on its warning to sue Elon Musk for trying to back out of his $44 billion offer to purchase the social media platform. The company filed its lawsuit against the billionaire Tesla CEO Tuesday in Chancery Court in Delaware.
Musk tweeted, “Oh the irony lol,” after news of the lawsuit broke.
The world’s richest man responded to Twitter’s board of directors’ warnings with a tweet showing him laughing at the notion that the company, where some opposed his acquisition, is now willing to go to court to make him buy it.
In a Post-Roe World, the Future of Digital Privacy Looks Even Grimmer
Welcome to the post-Roe era of digital privacy, a moment that underscores how the use of technology has made it practically impossible for Americans to evade ubiquitous tracking.
In states that have banned abortion, some women seeking out-of-state options to terminate pregnancies may end up following a long list of steps to try to shirk surveillance — like connecting to the internet through an encrypted tunnel and using burner email addresses — and reduce the likelihood of prosecution.
Even so, they could still be tracked. Law enforcement agencies can obtain court orders for access to detailed information, including location data logged by phone networks. And many police departments have their own surveillance technologies, like license plate readers.
In other words, the state of digital privacy is already so far gone that forgoing the use of digital tools altogether may be the only way to keep information secure, security researchers said. Leaving mobile phones at home would help evade the persistent location tracking deployed by wireless carriers.
U.S. Announces New Tech Partnership With Israel to Study AI, Address Climate Change
President Biden on Wednesday announced a new technological partnership with Israel focused on addressing climate change, studying artificial intelligence and countering the COVID-19 pandemic.
The White House released a statement saying the new strategic tech partnership will involve interagency dialogue between the U.S. and Israel and that officials will meet annually, with the first meeting set to take place in the fall of this year.
They plan to study the emerging field of AI through the fields of transportation, medicine and agriculture.
Shanghai Fears New Lockdown as Millions Test for COVID Amid Sweltering Heat
Millions of Shanghai residents braved sweltering heat Tuesday to wait in line for compulsory COVID tests, as growing case numbers and the emergence of a highly infectious Omicron subvariant spurred new fears of a return to mass lockdown.
Shanghai authorities have ordered the majority of the city’s 16 districts to undergo two rounds of testing from Tuesday to Thursday, after a case of the new BA.5.2.1 subvariant was detected in the community on July 8.
The highly transmissible BA.5 variant is spreading rapidly worldwide and is seen as a great threat by authorities in China — the last major country adhering to a stringent zero-COVID strategy.
This Part of India Is on the Verge of Becoming a Complete Surveillance State
The Indian government’s obsession with surveillance is nothing new. In 2021, the Pegasus Project, an investigation by a consortium of international journalists, revealed that the Indian government had been spying on more than 300 people, including journalists, activists and politicians.
Telangana is the youngest state in India. It was carved out as a separate political entity in June 2014 from Andhra Pradesh. As a young state, Telangana has been eager to experiment with the use of technology. Its capital city, Hyderabad, is one of the main technology hubs in India.
Srinivas Kodali, a researcher with the advocacy organization Free Software Movement of India, said the Telangana government has been open to allowing big technology companies to test their software there. According to Kodali, the bureaucracy in Hyderabad touts its innovation while implementing surveillance without any oversight.
TikTok to Roll out ‘Content Levels’ Rating System to Protect Teens
TikTok is the wild west of social media feeds (and they’re all kinds of a wild west). A scroll could start on a dance trend, jump to a clip of raw chicken ‘marinating’ in NyQuil and end on a video of someone filing their own teeth. It’s weird out there, and occasionally dangerous. Now TikTok is taking its next steps to rein things in.
The company announced a rating system called “Content Levels,” that it plans to institute an early version of “in the coming weeks,” in a Wednesday blog post. TikTok had indicated back in February that it was moving towards age-based feed restrictions, and Content Levels offers the first details of what that might look like. App users will also now have more control over their own video streams, with the ability to selectively mute hashtags.
TikTok has had a meteoric rise, especially among teenagers and even younger children. In the first three months of 2022, it was the most downloaded app worldwide. Throughout its rocket journey to the top though, TikTok has faced lots of flack — both for its controversial and allegedly flawed privacy policies and for its impact on users.
A Ransomware Attack on a Debt Collection Firm Could Be One of 2022’s Biggest Health Data Breaches
A ransomware attack on a little-known debt collection firm that serves hundreds of hospitals and medical facilities across the U.S. could be one of the biggest data breaches of personal and health information this year.
The Colorado-based Professional Finance Company, known as PFC, which contracts with “thousands” of organizations to process customer and patient unpaid bills and outstanding balances, disclosed on July 1 that it had been hit by ransomware months earlier in February.
PFC said in its data breach notice that more than 650 healthcare providers are affected by its ransomware attack, adding that the attackers took patient names, addresses, their outstanding balance and information relating to their accounts. PFC said that in “some cases” dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and health insurance and medical treatment information were also taken by the attackers.
In a separate filing with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, PFC confirmed that over 1.91 million patients are affected by the cyberattack.
Amazon Gave Ring Videos to Police Without Owners’ Permission
Amazon handed Ring video doorbell footage to police without owners’ permission at least 11 times so far this year — a figure that highlights the unfettered access the company is giving police to doorsteps across the country.
The revelation came in a letter Amazon sent to Sen.Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on July 1 after the lawmaker questioned the video doorbell’s surveillance practices in June. Markey released the letter to the public on Wednesday.
It’s a data point that is likely to only heighten Congressional scrutiny of the tech giant, which lawmakers have already upbraided over its privacy practices, after its facial recognition service Rekognition falsely associated 28 members of Congress with criminal mugshots in 2018 and how its Echo Dot Kids Edition protected children’s privacy.
The company is also facing antitrust concerns over its dominance across online retail, and its treatment of the third-party sellers that use its platform.
COVID Lockdowns Damaged Speech and Mental Development of Children, Teachers Say + More
COVID Lockdowns Damaged Speech and Mental Development of Children, Teachers Say
COVID-19 restrictions have damaged children developmentally in ways that might be irreparable, teachers say.
From early childhood to high school, children rely on facial expressions, social interaction, conversation with new people and friendships to develop mentally.
Children denied social interaction don’t grow mentally in the same way. When governments closed in-person schooling for months, cracked down on activities like play dates and ordered families to stay home it plunged children into painful isolation.
Now, teachers across America say the lockdown generation lags behind those raised in normal years. Older children have fewer friends and slower minds, while some of the youngest don’t feel the urge to make friends at all.
Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict the Next COVID Variants
As pharmaceutical companies struggle to keep up with the rapidly mutating coronavirus, a startup in Cambridge, Mass., says it can help them by using artificial intelligence to predict future variants.
Apriori Bio models the ways a virus might change and predicts how it will behave. The company says it’s harnessing that information to design “variant-proof” vaccines and treatments that can fight current and future strains — and provide an early warning to governments, sort of like a hurricane alert, to guide the public health response.
After honing its technology, called Octavia, for more than two years, the fledgling company is formally launching with $50 million in funding from Flagship Pioneering Inc., the incubator behind Moderna Inc.
We spoke with co-founder Lovisa Afzelius, a computational chemist — and Pfizer Inc. veteran — who serves as Apriori’s chief executive officer. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
U.S. CDC Plans to Improve International Air Contact Tracing Data Collection
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will take steps to improve the collection of international air passenger contact information to better monitor public health risks after a report found the current data system “needs substantial improvement.”
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday said, “limitations in how CDC collects and manages air passengers’ contact information — including CDC’s use of an outdated data management system — hinder the agency’s ability to monitor public health risks and facilitate contact tracing.”
Beginning in November 2021, the CDC required all airlines to collect contact tracing information from all international air passengers.
GAO recommended CDC redesign or adopt a new data system “to more effectively facilitate contact tracing for all air passengers and conduct disease surveillance for air travel.”
Healthcare Workers Who Challenged the COVID Vaccine Mandate in Maine Are Identified
Lawyers for a group of Maine healthcare workers suing Gov. Janet Mills over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate have filed an amended complaint identifying the workers.
The lawsuit also names Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Nirav Shah as defendants.
The original complaint, filed in August 2021, simply identified the workers as Jane and John Doe’s. They claimed the mandate violated their religious beliefs.
Last week, a judge ordered that the group release their identities or else the lawsuit would not move forward.
Deadline Has Passed — and Nearly 2,700 Texas Guard Troops Have Refused COVID Shots
San Antonio Express News via Houston Chronicle reported:
Enough soldiers in the Texas Army National Guard to almost fill a brigade have been put on notice: Get your coronavirus shots or get out of uniform. And more than a few appear headed toward the exits.
The deadline for National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers to comply with the Pentagon’s coronavirus order passed June 30, with 86% of the Texas Army National Guard and 92% of the Air National Guard vaccinated. The holdouts will not be allowed to participate in training starting this month, under a policy that bars refusals from attending drill weekends, the required annual two-week summer training and a variety of schools.
The guard said it does not give exact numbers on personnel strength, but with around 17,300 soldiers and 3,300 airmen, that means 2,422 soldiers and 264 members of the air guard are not vaccinated, a total of 2,686.
The guard said Thursday that 1,045 who have applied for exemptions are still awaiting approval.
Victoria Defies Health Advice for Mask Mandate as New COVID Wave Worsens Nationwide
The Victorian government has ignored health advice calling for mask mandates in schools, early childhood and retail settings amid a warning that hospitalizations during the current wave of COVID and flu infections may exceed earlier peaks.
As COVID reinfection rates rise nationwide, Victoria on Tuesday joined Queensland in encouraging residents to don masks without requiring them to do so.
Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, confirmed she rejected advice for a mask mandate from the state’s acting chief health officer, Prof Ben Cowie.
Hong Kong Leader Defends Health Code Plan to Combat COVID
Hong Kong leader John Lee on Tuesday defended the city’s plan to implement health codes that would more accurately restrict the movements of inbound travelers and those infected with COVID-19, dismissing concerns that the system could be used as a political or social control tool.
Lee, who spoke at a regular news conference, said the health code plan is part of the city’s objective to adopt “precise strategies to minimize the scope of restrictions.”
He was speaking a day after the city’s health chief unveiled plans to implement a health code system in which those infected with COVID-19 would receive a red code, while those under hotel quarantine would receive a yellow code. Those who receive such codes will have their movements restricted.
Celebrate Prime Day by Deleting the Data Amazon Has on You
Many of us spend a lot of time interacting with Amazon’s apps and services — speaking to its smart speakers, watching videos on its streaming platform, ordering items online — and all of those interactions leave a digital trail behind. If you want to view, download and maybe delete any of this data, these are the steps you need to follow.
As you might expect, there are a lot of different aspects to this and a lot of different screens you need to go through — you might not need to follow all of these steps, depending on what Amazon services you’re signed up for and what you want to know.
At the very least, though, it’s important to know how much data is being collected on you.
It’s also worth reading through the Amazon privacy policy, which outlines exactly what gets collected and how it’s used (Amazon stores your address so it can send you packages, for example). This is the agreement and the bargain you’re getting into if you want to use all of Amazon’s digital offerings, so make sure you’re comfortable with it before agreeing to it.
Children’s Rights Groups Call out TikTok’s ‘Design Discrimination’
Research examining default settings and terms & conditions offered to minors by social media giants TikTok, WhatsApp and Instagram across 14 different countries — including the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia and the U.K. — has found the three platforms do not offer the same level of privacy and safety protections for children across all the markets where they operate.
The level of protection minors receive on a service can depend upon where in the world they happen to live, according to the new report — entitled: Global Platforms, Partial Protections — which found “significant” variation in children’s experience across different countries on “seemingly identical platforms.”
The research was conducted by Fairplay, a not-for-profit that advocates for an end to marketing that targets children.
TikTok was found to be particularly problematic in this regard. And, alongside the publication of Fairplay’s report, the company has been singled out in a joint letter, signed by almost 40 child safety and digital rights advocacy groups, calling on it to offer a “Safety By Design” and “Children’s Rights by Design” approach globally — rather than only providing the highest standards in regions like Europe, where regulators have taken early action to safeguard kids online.
FTC Warns Tech Companies Against Misusing Health Data, Following Biden’s Executive Order Protecting Abortion Access
Tech companies and data brokers that misuse or misrepresent how they handle Americans’ personal data, including reproductive health information, may find themselves on the hook with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency warned this week.
On Monday, the FTC renewed its vow to investigate or sue companies that use Americans’ digital data in unfair or deceptive ways, following an executive order by the Biden administration that explicitly called for it and other agencies to consider steps to protect abortion-seekers.
Since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, civil liberties experts have warned that Americans’ extensive digital footprints could give away whether they have visited an abortion clinic or sought information on how to access an abortion, prompting questions about the security of that data.
In particular, the FTC said, regulators will closely scrutinize corporate claims that Americans’ data has been or will be “anonymized,” in light of substantial research showing that it can be trivial to reverse-engineer a person’s identity from anonymized datasets. The FTC said it has also sued companies in the past for collecting more data than consumers have consented to provide or that retain user data for indefinite periods of time.
TikTok ‘Pauses’ Privacy Policy Switch in Europe After Regulatory Scrutiny
TikTok has agreed to pause a controversial privacy policy update in Europe, which had been due to happen tomorrow, and would have meant the platform stopped asking users for their consent to be tracked to receive targeted advertising, TechCrunch has learned.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), TikTok’s lead privacy regulator for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), said the “pause” follows “engagement” between the oversight office and the tech giant yesterday.
“Further to engagement with the DPC yesterday, TikTok has now agreed to pause the application of the changes to allow for the DPC to carry out its analysis,” a DPC spokesperson told TechCrunch.